1. Area of the Art
The present application concerns the art of making and using video images and still images and more particularly concerns a method and device that enables a first user to prepare images that permit a second user to more readily interact with the images.
2. Description of the Background Art
Traditional passive media industries such as television, the music industry, film studios and TV commercials are loosing out to interactive new media such as video games industry and the Internet. Although devices such as digital video recorders (DVRs) allow consumers to time shift content, they are passive and do not enable consumers to create their own new content.
Meanwhile, a growing number of tools that enable the consumer to become a content creator have become available. Digital still and video cameras allow ready image capture. The captured images are readily manipulated with powerful software residing on personal computers. The images can be combined and printed, displayed on television screens, burned on to DVDs and even emailed to friends and family. At the same time powerful digital music creation tools allow the consumer to create new music to combine with their digital images. Now any one can be a content creator. Even cellular telephones capture good quality still images as well as video. This created content is finding its way on to increasingly popular Internet sites. Thus, any consumer can be a “star” but this does not diffuse the public's desire to interact with media celebrities and/or profit from their own media creations. One way to do this would be by enabling creative content that allows the consumer to “interact” with celebrities. The current invention combines the trends in personal media creation with this love of celebrities. At the same time the invention provides a vehicle whereby the more traditional content creators and advertisers can take advantage of and profit from professional and personal media creation.
The present invention provides a communication vehicle which enables content creators and Rights Holders to provide a source image for the consumer, and anybody who would like to interact with the source image by means of a template system and a virtual set/image key system. Two, or more, separate video/image streams can be composited together in real-time at home or anywhere where one has access to the “content” video. The “content” video can be distributed in a variety of manners including over the Internet, DVDs, CDs and other digital media. The system allows the use of metadata in the “content” video that describes what the camera did while the shot was being made as well as information about how a foreground video/image should be combined with the shot using a template system. The resulting composite produces a convincing illusion in which the user/subject seems to be interacting live with the “content.” For example, assume that a video of a rock concert is available on the Internet. The user captures his or her own image using a computer (which includes a variety of computing devices including personal computers and game consoles) connected video camera. This image of the user-consumer is combined with the “content” video using real-time software to produce a final video image where the user appears to be present in the rock concert video. This produces a recordable real-time video-in-video interaction of professional or amateur made digital video content (“the Content (or background) Creator”) and consumer's digital video content (“the Consumer (or the foreground) Creator”). Similarly, for advertising purposes images can be readily adjusted; a billboard in movie or a video game might show a Coke ad in America and a Nike ad in Europe; teenage girls could receive a different advertising subject than teenage boys, etc. The same applies to the very talented amateurs out there who get millions of hits on their Internet posted consumer generated videos. Using the present invention, they could sell advertisement space within their own videos. Advertisements could be seamlessly and creatively integrated with the original content without being intrusive or disruptive and without interrupting the viewing experience.
This real-time process enables an advertiser and a consumer's video-in-video/image-in-image interaction with live broadcast, as-live broadcast, locally stored video files, computer games and video conferencing. The consumer or advertiser is allowed to interact with a wide range of Entertainment Programming (broadcast, feature films, commercials, music videos, TV series, “webisodes”, online gaming and consumer generated media), or educational programming such as dance lessons, music lessons, singing lessons, acting lessons, medical training, etc. While the implementation described below is very much a consumer application, the invention can also be used as an educational tool, as a scientific tool as well as an advertising and product placement tool.